Third, how much would the protective effect of marriage on risk for alcohol use disorder in an individual depend on the history of alcohol use disorder in his or her spouse? Our initial analyses focused on a lifetime registration for alcohol use disorder in the spouse, and we found strong effects. While marriage to a spouse without lifetime registration for alcohol use disorder was strongly protective, marriage to an affected spouse significantly increased the risk for future alcohol use disorder. These findings go beyond previous studies showing that spouses tend to be concordant for alcohol use disorder (40) and are consistent with a substantial literature documenting partner influence (29) and convergence for alcohol use (41) as well as the heightened risk for developing alcohol problems when one’s spouse has an alcohol problem (30). We also conducted follow-up analyses examining marriage to women who had a registration for alcohol use disorder prior to marriage; the effect on future risk for alcohol use disorder in their husbands was modestly weaker than that seen for our broader definition of any lifetime disorder (hazard
